Holy Ground Exploring Catholic history in the Pacific Northwest PART 6: BLANCHET A BISHOP MARCH 8, 2020 ather F. N. Blanchet was embraced it. He wrote his first certain of two things: that pastoral letter and then departed for the country needed Canada to receive episcopal a bishop, and that he was consecration from Bishop Signay. notF the right person for the job. In To us, Blanchet’s route to his view, the failure of the California seems fantastically missions was attributable to a lack of roundabout, but at the time it was bishops (a questionable reading of both the fastest and the safest route. history, at best!) and thus the He travelled by ship, sailing on the Church would not thrive in Oregon Columbia from Astoria in Oregon without a resident bishop. In urging on December 5. The ship stopped in his case to Archbishop Signay of Honolulu where Blanchet was able Quebec, Blanchet also made it clear to spend a few days with the Picpus that he did not consider himself a Fathers and marvel at their “splendid candidate. “I am already old,” he stone church measuring 150 feet.” wrote (Blanchet was 44 at the time). Departing Honolulu, the ship “My powers diminish; I am slow at rounded Cape Horn on March 5 and business and it is only by close arrived in England on May 22. application that I arrive at a Blanchet spent a few days in London, knowledge of anything; I have a then embarked from Liverpool to treacherous memory; my vigor is Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet (center), first Boston and from there to Montreal. gone; I do not know English; I have Archbishop of Oregon City. On the left is his broth- When he finally reached Quebec at er, A. M. A. Blanchet, first Bishop of Walla Walla, never had a time to study due to the and on the right is Modeste Demers, first Bishop of the end of June, he found that demands of the ministry where I . Photo from oregonencyclopedia.org. Archbishop Signay was away on a have always been busy.” visitation of his diocese, and not due Archbishop Signay agreed that Oregon needed a bishop. to return to Quebec for some months. Blanchet was in a Father DeSmet seemed to be the most likely candidate, and quandary—who would ordain him a bishop now? his name appeared at the head of the terna (a list of three Fortunately, a coadjutor Archbishop had just been appointed potential candidates for episcopal office). The American in Montreal, and so Blanchet was ordained alongside him in bishops, who took up the subject of the at Montreal’s St. James Cathedral on July 25. the Fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore, agreed. They Duly ordained, Blanchet spent a few weeks visiting family preferred an American—even if he was a Jesuit!—to a in Canada before departing for Europe to raise funds and Canadian like Blanchet. But when their request went to personnel for his new diocese. By the time he arrived in Rome, the Jesuits’ Father General flatly refused the Rome, where he had several meetings with Pope Gregory appointment of any Jesuit priest as bishop. All eyes then XVI, Blanchet had conceived a plan for the Oregon country. turned to Blanchet. On December 1, 1843, Pope Gregory It was only a vicariate apostolic, not a diocese, but Blanchet XVI appointed Blanchet ‘vicar apostolic’ of the Oregon envisioned an archdiocese, centered in the , territory. Signay forwarded the news to Blanchet, telling him with seven suffragan sees—all thisin spite of the fact that his that if anyone was to blame, it was DeSmet, for “the good territory was “a wilderness” with “not a single city… no road, Father… has worked harder than myself to have [this dignity] no postal service, not even a sovereign government” conferred on you…. You can show your resentment over it at (Schoenberg). your convenience.” And yet, in what Wilfrid Schoenberg, SJ describes as “one It was not until November 4, 1844 that word of his of the most amazing decisions in the history of the church,” promotion reached Blanchet in Oregon. He did not even the Holy Father agreed with Blanchet. On July 24, 1846, he need to open the letter to realize what had happened: the created the Archdiocese of Oregon City—only the second letter came addressed to the “bishop elect”! Though he had Archdiocese in the United States, which until then had had resisted the appointment, now that it was done, Blanchet just one Archbishop, in Baltimore. Blanchet did not get his www.stjames-cathedral.org PART 5: FATHER DE SMET GOES TO VANCOUVER MARCH 1, 2020

Wikimedia Commons seven suffragan sees, but he did get two: Vancouver Island roundabout “Express” nine years before. A. M. A. Blanchet and Walla Walla. traveled via the Oregon Trail, by this time a well-established It would be nearly a year before Archbishop Blanchet route to the Willamette Valley. He later wrote to the Bishop turned towards home. He had to collect funds and, even of Toronto with some helpful pointers for other priests who more important, personnel. When he did return to Oregon, might be thinking about traveling west: “if he has baggage, it he did not go alone: with him were seven Sisters of Notre will be necessary to purchase a wagon at St. Louis and to buy Dame de Namur, eight priests (three Jesuits and five other some oxen, five or six years old, not too fat; if the load does priests), along with some Jesuit brothers and some young not weigh more than 1200 to 1500 pounds, three pair will be men in various stages of priestly formation—twenty-two sufficient for the wagon but it is necessary to have one or two people in all. They got a slow start—after loading themselves extra pair in case of accidents, which are likely to happen.” and their supplies into L’Étoile du Matin, there was a dead The increasing numbers of wagons on the Oregon Trail calm and they were forced to disembark. They spent a week in meant that there was often nowhere for the oxen to graze: Brest, working on their English and waiting for wind. At last, “from Fort Hall to Walla Walla there were no less than a on February 22, 1847, they got underway, reaching Oregon hundred wagons abandoned because there were no more seven months later. beasts to pull them…. My wagons are still usable but the oxen Who would lead the other new Northwest dioceses of are so worn with fatigue, hunger and thirst that it was Vancouver Island and Walla Walla? Father Modeste Demers, necessary to leave along the way some of the supplies carried who had labored alongside Blanchet from the beginning, was from St. Louis, such as the plow.” Even more concerning, the an obvious choice for Vancouver Island. But the trip had cost more than twice what Blanchet had anticipated: appointment of Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet, F. “Farewell, then, to the hope of beginning the episcopal N. Blanchet’s younger brother, as the first Bishop of Walla establishment with the money subscribed by Quebec and Walla, came as a complete surprise. Unlike F. N. Blanchet, A. Montreal.” Little did Blanchet know how many more dangers M. A. Blanchet had very little missionary experience—in fact, awaited him after his arrival at Walla Walla. at the time of his appointment, he was serving as a canon in —Corinna Laughlin, Pastoral Assistant for Liturgy Montreal’s St. James Cathedral, a very far cry from the wilds of Oregon country. But, at the age of fifty, he was a seasoned Works consulted pastor with a range of experience, a stern man of faith who • Wilfred P. Schoenberg, SJ, A History of the Catholic proved an excellent leader for what would, through Church in the Pacific Northwest (1987) considerable difficulties, eventually become the Archdiocese • Roberta Stringham Brown and Patricia O’Connell of Seattle. Killen, Selected Letters of A. M. A. Blanchet, Bishop of Times had changed since F. N. Blanchet and Modeste Walla Walla and Nesqualy, 1846-1879 (2013) Demers had gone west via the Hudson’s Bay Company MAKE A VISIT There are historic sites all along the old Oregon Trail, starting from St. Louis, Missouri. The closest one to us is the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon. “Using life-size displays, films and live theater presentations, this Center tells the story of Oregon Trail pioneers, explorers, miners and settlers of the frontier west. The 500 acre site includes remnants of the historic Flagstaff Gold Mine, actual ruts carved by pioneer wagons, and magnificent vistas of the historic trail route.”

National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, 22267 Highway 86, Baker City, Oregon 97814 https://www.blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/national-historic-oregon-trail-interpretive-center